In the sports world, the halls of fame are set aside for the best of the best who were the people that made unforgettable contributions to their profession. The Hockey Hall of Fame is based in Toronto, Ontario and it wouldn’t be complete without greats such as Wayne Gretzky and Gordie Howe who left lasting legacies on the sport. The same can be said about the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio where you cannot walk through the halls there without seeing a bust of Vince Lombardi or “Mean” Joe Greene. Each professional sport has its own hall of fame, but none has become more controversial than the Baseball Hall of Fame which is in Cooperstown, New York.
The doors at Cooperstown opened to the public in 1939 as a place to honor the greats that have been affiliated with the game. However the first class inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame was in 1936 and the inaugural members were Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, Walter Johnson, Honus Wagner, and Christy Mathewson. Since then we have seen a who’s who get enshrined into Cooperstown the includes Mickey Mantle, Johnny Bench, Tom Seaver, and Mike Schmidt just to name a few. But as the old adage goes the pen is mightier than the sword and we see that every year when it comes time to elect a new class into the Baseball Hall of Fame.
The Baseball Writers of America have been given the authority to act as judge, jury, and executioner on deciding who gets the pass into Cooperstown. To get enshrinement a person must get at least 75 percent of the vote from these glorified glad handlers of the game who have made themselves the policemen of Major League Baseball. Never has a player ever been elected into Cooperstown on 100 percent of the vote as the writers can become as petty and vindictive as a woman who had her heart broken around Valentine’s Day. And I find it hard to believe that there would ever be a person around that would vote in order to disallow the game’s greats such as Cal Ripken Jr., Jackie Robinson, or Hank Aaron entry to Cooperstown, but nobody seems to care.
2015 Hall of Fame Class
This year’s class was recently announced as it will be John Smoltz, Randy Johnson, Pedro Martinez, and Craig Biggio who will be headed to Cooperstown where they rightfully belong. Smoltz is the only player in Major League Baseball history to record 200 wins and 100 saves. Johnson’s 4,875 strikeouts are the second highest ever in MLB history. Pedro Martinez was a three-time Cy Young Award winner as he was one of the most dominant pitchers of his era. And Biggio is the only player in Houston Astros franchise history to record 3,000 career hits. Smoltz, Johnson, and Martinez got in on the first try while Biggio had to sweat it out as this was his third time on the ballot. And as always there will be controversy as far as people who were not selected and that hat will be worn this year by Mike Piazza.
Mike Piazza
Like Biggio this was Piazza’s third time on the ballot, but he fell 28 votes shy of enshrinement. Piazza played the majority of his MLB career as a catcher which is the hardest position to play on the baseball diamond. At 6’3″, Piazza would squat behind the plate for nine innings which took a toll on his body. Through all of this Piazza was a lifetime .308 hitter with 427 home runs. Piazza hit more home runs than any other catcher in Major League Baseball history and he spent the majority of his career batting cleanup. Piazza also hit one of the most memorable home runs in Major League Baseball history. On September 21, 2001, the New York Mets hosted the Atlanta Braves in the first professional sporting event in the Big Apple after the terrorist attacks of September 11th. The scene that night was only befitting of New York City which featured a song and dance from the great Liza Minnelli. And like any good show on Broadway, the Mets gave the fans a memorable finish. In the bottom of the eighth inning with the Mets trailing by a run, Piazza stepped to the plate and belted a two-run home run that gave the Mets the 3-2 lead. That night Shea Stadium was rocking as if it were Game 7 of the World Series and in a city full of bright stars, Piazza shined the brightest. But apparently all of this is not enough for him to be deemed worthy as some writers such as Marty Noble of MLB.com are suspicious of Piazza “possibly” using performance-enhancing drugs. The only reason why that rumor has any life to it is that it was started by some former MLB players whom to this day have remained nameless. Rumors are exactly that and the majority of the time they don’t have any factuality behind them; just that they are juicy and people are gullible to believe them. I right now can start a rumor and say that a man had an affair with his wife and even without credibility or credence and it could ruin his relationship with his wife. Piazza never failed a drug test during his MLB career and he put up the majority of his offensive numbers for the Los Angeles Dodgers and Mets who play in the two largest media markets in the United States. In the case of Piazza, Joel Sherman of the New York Post did note vote for Piazza, but he voted for Roger Clemens and Barry Bonds who have been linked to performance-enhancing drugs. Sherman is a New York based writer while Noble was a beat writer for the Mets during Piazza’s career and there shouldn’t be any reason for the local guys in an area to not vote for a guy that they have seen compete on a regular basis. Piazza is not the first person to given the runaround as far as getting into the Baseball Hall of Fame and he won’t be the last.
Marvin Miller
Marvin Miller did not play professional baseball, but he had a huge part in the landscape of it and other professional sports leagues like it. From 1966-1982, Miller was the head of the Major League Baseball Players Association which was the union that represented the players. Miller oversaw the infamous trade of Curt Flood trade from the St. Louis Cardinals to the Philadelphia Phillies. Flood’s refusal to join the Phillies was the catalyst for modern day free agency in sports with Miller spearheading it. Miller was vital in turning professional athletes into multi-millionaires as they began to be compensated handsomely through free agency and the threat of a player potentially leaving a team. Miller has been up for consideration into the Baseball Hall of Fame on numerous occasions, only to always be denied. Miller died in 2012 and he never got the chance to give an induction speech at Cooperstown.
Buck O’Neil
Buck O’Neil may have never had the glamorous stats of other players that participated in the Negro Leagues, but he was responsible for many of them being recognized and eventually being inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. O’Neil died in 2006 and he was never inducted into the Cooperstown: the place that he was responsible for getting many people into. For every Johnson and Smoltz that gets in on the first ballot, there are guys like Bert Blyleven who won 287 games and struck out 3,701 batters which was third most in Major League Baseball history when he retired. Blyleven was on the ballot for 14 years before he was inducted in Cooperstown.
When someone is a judge for something, he or she has been put there to be impartial, but that is not the case with some of the baseball writers. Second baseman Roberto Alomar didn’t get into the Baseball Hall of Fame on his first time on the ballot as many writers held it against him that he spit on an umpire in 1996. Writers such as Noble held it against Alomar when he didn’t run out one play during his time with the Mets. Jim Rice spent his enitre 16-year MLB career with the Boston Red Sox where he was an American League MVP in 1978. But Rice was not one to talk to the media that often which is something that writers held against him as he was not inducted into Cooperstown until 2009. Situations such as this are evidence enough to show that some of these baseball writers cannot be impartial and they should not have the full authority to decide who gets into the Baseball Hall of Fame. This problem can be fixed, but no one who is currently in a position to change it like outgoing MLB commissioner Bud Selig who are worried about getting into Cooperstown themselves which means that they will continue to turn the other cheek. In the interim, these writers will continue to be blessed with the ability to toy with the emotions of people who they envy; as most writers wish that they had the athletic ability and prowess of the men who’s fate they hold in the palm of their hands which shows how hungry for power that they truly are. Once a guy’s playing days are over, his stats don’t change; either he belongs in the Baseball Hall of Fame or he doesn’t which is something that we can see when he played. If a player never failed a drug test it isn’t up to a writer to determine whether he was “clean” or not. As much as people get on the case of guys such as Clemens, Bonds, and Mark McGwire, none of these players ever failed a drug test and they shouldn’t be persecuted for it. As long as money is involved in professional sports, athletes will do whatever it takes to get an edge; just as writers will do whatever it takes to crack a story. The Baseball Hall of Fame should be the home of the best people affiliated with the game of baseball; not the home of the people whom the writers like. Writers have their own hall of fame which is a mutual admiration society and some of them will break every single code of ethics to break a story. They will tell you that this is how it has always been. Times change and so do people along with it. This system doesn’t work anymore as it has made a mockery out of baseball which is why writers such as Noble and Sherman should be boycotted until their votes are taken away from them.
Source: Baseball-reference.com
Leave A Comment